Episode 5 – Aaron Fleming’s 365+ Jump Rope Journey

Dizzy Skips (00:18)
Hey folks, it’s Dizzy. This podcast recording software has a teleprompter feature where I can load in a script and then, you know, it’ll make a teleprompter and I can just read off the screen. I’m sure you’re like, duh, dude, you sound like a robot. We know you’re reading off a teleprompter, but anyway, every time I’ve had to use it, I have had to rerecord at least twice, sometimes more because either it’s too fast or I’m too fast. And that certainly happened in this episode, but also I talked to my friend on

Saturday and we talked for about an hour, recorded our episode, and then we’re chatting back and forth later on in the day and felt like we had more to say and that maybe we could do a little better. So we got back together on Sunday, had another chat, and generated about two hours worth of conversation. So rather than drop a two-hour podcast on you, I’m gonna split it into a couple different episodes because I think there’s some cool different topics in the different conversations.

So I hope you enjoy it’s at AaronJumps.365, Aaron Fleming, fabulous guy. You should be following him and I hope you enjoy this episode.

Cheerio!

Dizzy Skips (01:26)
Ladies and gentlemen, cats and kittens, this is episode five of the Skip Squad Chronicles podcast with me, host, Dizzy Skips. I love the jump rope community and the people I’ve met. This corner of the internet is a happy place where we improve ourselves and help others through skipping rope. Because it takes so long to get to know folks through social media, I decided to start this podcast where I can rope jumpers into interviews and have fun conversations to find out what makes them tick.

Jumping, rope, and shuffling have improved my life in so many ways and a lot of the credit goes to the support of badass jumpers like my guest today. So in our fifth skip session today, I’m thrilled to talk to my friend Aaron Fleming, aka Rope Wrangler Extraordinaire. He’s a fun guy to follow and a fabulous rope skipper. If you don’t know Aaron already, you can find him on Instagram at @AaronJumps.365 and I’ll put his link in the show notes. So let’s just jump right in. Aaron, thank you so much for joining me today.

Aaron Fleming (02:15)
Are they alright? Alright. How you doing?

Dizzy Skips (02:18)
I’m so excited to talk to you. Good. Well, let’s kick it off with just like where you at, where you located.

Aaron Fleming (02:25)
In Doncaster, which is south Yorkshire, and then I’m originally from Milton Keynes so my accent’s all over the place.

Dizzy Skips (02:32)
Okay, I need, I can distinguish from some different British accents, but I feel like I need a lexicon or a lesson in the different accents, because there is quite a difference as you travel around, Same.

Aaron Fleming (02:49)
Yeah, yeah. So like a different town can have a completely different accent. Especially in Yorkshire, we’ve got Bardsley, Sheffield, Rovereham. Everyone’s got their own little twang.

Dizzy Skips (02:55)
Yeah.

Okay. Huh. That’s fun. When did you start jumping rope?

Aaron Fleming (03:07)
Erm, so 400 and something days ago, can’t remember, am I on, 454? I just literally picked up the rope and started jumping.

Dizzy Skips (03:13)
Yeah.

Was there an inciting incident? Did you decide you wanted to get healthy or did you do it for a cause?

Aaron Fleming (03:21)
I’m

So I tried it before, briefly, but then you know like when you start jumping you’re like I’m gonna do an hour. Because I didn’t realise that there was like, you do a hundred or a thousand I was like I’m just gonna do it for an hour. So I kept getting injured. So I had a little bit of experience going into it. And then one day I just woke up and went I’m just gonna create an Instagram account and post skipping videos. Literally like that.

Dizzy Skips (03:36)
Mm-hmm.

Cool, had you been watching like other people skipping videos? No? Just kinda like, boom, I’m gonna do this?

Aaron Fleming (03:52)
Nope.

Dizzy Skips (04:05)
Yeah, I think of you as kind of the crossover king. Like I watched another one of your videos this morning and there’s literally like no time that you’re not crossing somehow. Like it’s trick after trick after trick. I was gonna joke that I counted and there was half a million, but yeah, you’re quite the rope wrangler.

Aaron Fleming (04:28)
That all just started just because I obviously did a crossover and for the first 100 and something days I didn’t realise there was other skippers. Like I didn’t know there was a community. So I would just go, I’ll do this cross and wonder if could do this from that cross. Because obviously just standing still and doing one crossover every now and again was getting pretty old pretty quickly.

Dizzy Skips (04:39)
yeah?

Yeah. Did you, do you use any sort of app or how are you learning?

Aaron Fleming (04:58)
So once I discovered the community, it was literally… because I’ve got a thing of not doing tutorials, you know like watching a tutorial. So I’ll watch someone do a move in the middle of a combo, and I’ll be like, I want to do that move, and then try to figure it out myself, and then obviously I would land a different move entirely, and think, I’ve done that move, no it’s a different one. But yeah, that’s literally how it is, I just try a move that I see in a combo and hope it works.

Dizzy Skips (05:24)
So you’re basically just watching people on Instagram. You haven’t used an app or had a coach or anything like that?

Aaron Fleming (05:32)
No, none of that, yeah. Just literally Instagram. So when people go, you’re amazing at doing up grasses, I’m like, it’s only what I’ve seen everyone else do, Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (05:41)
Yeah. Well, one thing I’ve heard from a lot of different people on Instagram is how helpful that you’ve been to them and helping them, like sending them tutorials and things like that on learning some of that stuff. And I know you’ve offered to do the same for me, which I really appreciate. I think you’re a shining example of what makes this community really great.

Aaron Fleming (06:00)
Cheers.

Dizzy Skips (06:00)
So, yeah. So, I feel like you jump a lot in your backyard. One of my questions is like, are your normal and favorite places to jump?

Aaron Fleming (06:11)
So yep, literally always in my back garden. So I had a little spot around the corner and then I moved it to this one because it’s a little bit bigger. But yeah, I’ve literally jumped in two spots. I didn’t jump outside or anything like that. It’s just my garden.

Dizzy Skips (06:19)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I’ve joked with you about your stocking feet. Like you seem to, like wearing shoes seems to be the exception for you, unless I’m mistaken.

Aaron Fleming (06:35)
Yeah, so when I’m wearing shoes, it’s awkward to explain when everyone else wears shoes and I don’t like wearing them, I feel like it’s too springy when you jump in. And then I can’t really feel where my feet are, so I really struggle with it. So obviously I’ve got these new shoes now which are the shoeless ones and it just helps me feel the floor better when I’m jumping.

Dizzy Skips (06:47)
Okay. Okay.

And are those kind of like the Aqua sock things that have the toes and stuff?

Aaron Fleming (07:03)
Yeah. Mine doesn’t have the toes but you can get them with toes,

Dizzy Skips (07:08)
I know you struggled with an injury recently and I wondered if not wearing shoes maybe exacerbated that or if you find that you, when not wearing shoes you have to change your style or you tend to get injured more.

Aaron Fleming (07:26)
Erm, so I’ve had quite a few injuries whilst doing this, as you can imagine doing it 450 days in a row. But all the injuries have come from other things. So I’ve been playing football a lot recently and I’ve had so many injuries from that already. Or I can’t fall over and then I help myself and then that’s another injury, help myself in the gym. But it’s never skipping, never jumping.

Dizzy Skips (07:42)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, well that’s good. And you’re not falling off limestone benches anywhere. No. So what about your gear? Like what type of ropes do you use? Or do you have multiple ropes? Are you a hoarder like me?

Aaron Fleming (07:56)
No.

I am slowly building it up but initially I just started with a speed rope and a weighted rope and then obviously I’ve got like a beaded rope now where I got that from Dope Ropes so I’ve been using that a lot but then I don’t really use it unless I’m like recording so like I’ll use my other ropes and then use the beaded rope for recording so it’s a bit…

Dizzy Skips (08:15)
Okay.

Why is that?

Aaron Fleming (08:33)
I just prefer the weighted rope. Like the weighted rope is my favourite rope but then you can’t really see what it’s doing so I just push it to its side and use my beaded rope.

Dizzy Skips (08:37)
Mm-hmm.

How heavy is your weighted rope?

Aaron Fleming (08:44)
It’s a pound and I’m looking at trying to some heavier ones.

Dizzy Skips (08:46)
Holy moly. Yeah, that is a seriously heavy rope. I mean, I think you consider like a quarter pound a heavy rope. So a whole pound is quite a bit. You got the guns though, right? From using that?

Aaron Fleming (09:01)
Yeah, so I did the like a 40 day one where I was just using just the heavy rope, you know, like I wasn’t having a day with the speed rope and I was only using the heavy rope. Yeah, I felt that pretty quickly.

Dizzy Skips (09:17)
Yeah, I think it must have been March or April, we still had snow on the ground and I did a little video where I was jumping with a heavy rope and I had this brilliant idea to see if I could plow snow with it. And so I jumped into this slushy snow and get it all over me, which was exactly what I thought would happen, but.

Aaron Fleming (09:37)
I remember the video, I’ve seen that one. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (09:39)
Do you? That’s where you realized what a genius I was, right? So what has been the hardest thing for you to learn or to master?

Aaron Fleming (09:51)
So I seem to be fine with all the arm tricks, that they’re fine, it’s when I need to bring my legs into it, that’s when it’s… it all goes wrong for me. So footwork and all that sort of stuff, no I’m not doing any of that. Although I have been trying with like a… we do like this thing at the end of the month where we do footwork challenges, so I’ve been trying to do it, but it’s not for me.

Dizzy Skips (10:00)
Yeah

So when you…

When you say, do this thing at the end of the month, is this like you and a friend or is this you and a-

Aaron Fleming (10:21)
There’s a group and every month what I’ll do at the beginning is say we’re gonna do this footwork routine. Then it’s open to your own interpretation how you do that. yeah, it’s just something little I’ve been trying to do to do a little bit more footwork.

Dizzy Skips (10:30)
It’s OK.

Cool. you do like boxer step or like what is your go-to footwork?

Aaron Fleming (10:52)
It would be some boxer step variations to it. So like I’ll do like the running man, a couple of boxer stuff. But yeah, for the most part I’m just jumping the whole time.

Dizzy Skips (11:05)
Yeah. are you listening to music while you jump always or?

Aaron Fleming (11:12)
did. For ages I was doing it, you know, I could then I’d try and record a video to the music but then it just never it never worked well for me because I would get stressed out with a song and then I was like I don’t want to listen to that song anymore and then obviously I would watch it back and I’m like it doesn’t even go with a song. Like what’s wrong with me? I’ve been listening to a song and I’ve done skipping it doesn’t go with it. So none at all.

Dizzy Skips (11:19)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So now you don’t skip with music?

Aaron Fleming (11:40)
Or it would just be, like, you know, in the background quite quiet.

Dizzy Skips (11:44)
Okay. That’s so hard for me to understand. It’s so integral to my skipping is my music playlist. So, but I have to say like I’ve got several great songs from watching your feed. And even though you’re not skipping the music, you mix your reels with music. so like 99 problems was one that I hadn’t seen before. And I saw that on your feed and was like, my God, this song is awesome. And so I’ve been singing to myself. I got 99 problems, but a bench ain’t one because

jump on benches. You mentioned getting injured. What sort of injuries have you or have affected your jumping? I guess you said none of them have come from jumping, has it been mostly like the football stuff?

Aaron Fleming (12:28)
So I’ve had a couple of broken toes. One of them was ridiculous. I was walking in my gym and there was a weight in the way. So I picked it up and then didn’t think about it and then just dropped it onto my own toe. So yeah, I broke my toe doing that. I’ve had… I pulled my groin. That was horrendous to jump with. But that was when I was still doing the 365 so I was like, not gonna… I’m gonna keep jumping. With a… there.

Dizzy Skips (12:43)
Ugh. Ow.

Yeah.

Aaron Fleming (12:58)
That was hard work. And that hurt for like four weeks as well and I was still posting every day and still jumping. And then obviously I’ve done my hamstring. And then there’s been a few other things like I smashed my head open. Yeah. I did a jumping squat under a doorframe. And smashed it open. But then obviously I’m going jump the next day and I’m like if it hits me in the head it’s going to really hurt. yeah. Six, seven.

Dizzy Skips (13:05)
Yeah.

But

Yeah. How tall are you?

my God, you’re quite tall. Six, seven. I’m like five, 10. So you would tower over me. So what do you feel like you get from Jump Rope? how has it affected your life, Aaron?

Aaron Fleming (13:45)
So before I started jumping rope, all I would do would be just to lift weights. That’s literally all I did. I’d get in from work, go into the gym and lift weights up. Getting from work, but I’ve got an office job so I’m repeating this over and over again. And I’m just getting heavier and heavier and heavier and the more I’m doing it. And then obviously that’s when the…

Dizzy Skips (13:54)
Okay.

Like building up muscle.

Aaron Fleming (14:10)
Yeah, so I’m building up muscle but I’m eating lots of food and not moving so I’m obviously getting fat. I think at one point I was 20 stone which obviously that’s not a healthy way to live. So yeah, I just needed to introduce some sort cardio which I could keep doing. I don’t like running. I did cycling before but I broke my collarbone doing it so that’s…

Dizzy Skips (14:31)
boring!

Aaron Fleming (14:39)
sort of out the question. Yeah, so I just thought I’d try skipping. It was either skipping or rowing. So you could have been watching reels of me just rowing away. But yeah.

Dizzy Skips (14:51)
There’s not a lot of rowing tricks, are there?

Aaron Fleming (14:54)
Err, no, no. I would probably try to jump with the rowing machine, but…

Dizzy Skips (14:59)
The crossovers with the paddles. So presumably as a result of jumping rope you lost weight or…

Aaron Fleming (15:01)
Yeah.

Yeah, so I went from 20 stone and then I weighed myself relatively recently and I was 15 and a… like I was closer to 16 stone but I was obviously 15 stone in a bit which I was like, well I’m 15 stone. But yeah.

Dizzy Skips (15:22)
Wow, that is a huge loss, huh? That’s amazing. I think you’ve heard me say that I jump for mental health as well. And do you get any of those kinds of benefits out of it?

Aaron Fleming (15:35)
Yes, so… Before I was working out I was quite depressed. So obviously drinking a lot of alcohol and… Just not doing anything, cos I’ve just got an office job. I’m just sitting in my office, coming home, sitting down playing the game, drinking alcohol. Yeah, and that was sort of like my existence, which isn’t ideal. I’ve got kids and I’ve got a missus and all that sort of stuff. So then it sort of triggered me to…

Dizzy Skips (16:02)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Fleming (16:04)
do weightlifting so I was doing that thinking I was getting super healthy and then obviously then I realized I need to do the like some cardio and all that sort of stuff but I’ve got an addictive personality so if I if I’m doing nothing and I’m eating food I will get addicted to eating food I’ll get addicted to drinking beer I’ll get addicted to smoking cigarettes so what I’ve sort of managed to do is focus my addictions at doing fitness

Dizzy Skips (16:08)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Fleming (16:33)
going out and doing the skip, going into the gym. Although skipping’s sort of overtaking the gym at the minute, we’ll get back on that.

Dizzy Skips (16:34)
Mm-hmm.

. Yeah, well, that’s great.

So what is your favorite aspect of jumping rope? Like when you’re jumping rope, we’ve talked about you doing crosses and tricks, but like what makes you go out again and again every day and skip?

Aaron Fleming (16:58)
It’s just a challenge to be honest, of just doing it every day. So obviously it started out when I was just… So I started out when I was doing… I think I was on day three and I was like, I’m gonna do it every day for a year, as a joke. And then, obviously some days are super hard and it’s snowing outside and the winds come in and rip my mat off the floor. Yeah, so it’s the challenge of like, right I’m gonna go outside again, I’m gonna go outside again.

Dizzy Skips (17:04)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Aaron Fleming (17:27)
Yeah, it’s just normal for me now. So just going and doing it is just like a normal activity that I do in the day.

Dizzy Skips (17:34)
Yeah, I think that’s so great. I think for me, it’s the same sort of thing. I’m also an addictive personality and my stepmom jokes like she’ll say something to the effect of like you’re dizzying it up, meaning like you’re going full throttle on something. Like if I get into drawing, then I’m really into drawing. If I get into jump rope, I’m really into jump rope and sort of obsessive about it.

Aaron Fleming (17:57)
Yeah.

And of course it’s easy to fall into the… It’s easy to fall into the… The bad stuff isn’t it, like playing other video games and all that. And… Yeah. So easy to go the wrong way.

Dizzy Skips (18:02)
But I found, go ahead.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I noticed like here in Minnesota, it gets quite cold in the winter and we get snow and stuff like that. And sometimes comfort food, you know, like it just big bowl of pasta sounds good. And then it sounds good every single night. And then I’m just like loading up on carbs and yeah, I think jump rope has really helped kind of.

modulate some of that behavior and then also help me focus on it. And for me personally, I don’t know about you, once I started seeing like I was losing weight and I was feeling like I could do this for a longer period of time, it was motivating. So when I craved, you know, that big dessert or something like that, I would have that voice like, do you really want that? You you worked so hard to get where you’re at.

Aaron Fleming (18:58)
Thank

Yeah, yeah, I’ve definitely had that a few times. It’s like, how I am now, even with lunches at work, when you can splurge out a little bit because the shops are there and all that sort of stuff. I still like to go to the shop for that little walk to the shop, but I’m literally like, that’s got 20 grams of protein in it. That’s got 20 grams of protein in it. Just buying all the protein stuff now.

Dizzy Skips (18:59)
So.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Fleming (19:21)
But yeah, so in regards with the skipping, it has changed how I would view food in general. So if I have a 14 inch pizza the day before, and then I’m trying to skip on that, it doesn’t go very well. So yeah, I have to think about what I’m eating because yeah, it’s a nightmare.

Dizzy Skips (19:35)
Yeah.

Yeah, I had a 14 inch pizza last night. I treated myself.

Aaron Fleming (19:45)
I have had a… I do still do that knowing I’m going to struggle the next day, but less.

Dizzy Skips (19:51)
Yeah. All right. So this is very important. What do you get on your pizza? What are your toppings?

Aaron Fleming (19:57)
I like mine quite basic, know, I’m a big fan of just the cheese pizza or just a little bit of pepperoni on it. Definitely no pineapple, pineapple’s a big…

Dizzy Skips (20:04)
Okay.

Really? Yeah. I do like the ham and pineapple, that Hawaiian as well, but pepperoni, I get jalapenos on it. I like spicy stuff. that’s my favorite. Do you, cool. I live in the Midwest in the U.S. and these people are very meat and potatoes people and not very into spicy. know, they think like mild or medium salsa off the shelf is spicy and

Aaron Fleming (20:23)
I like spicy food too.

Dizzy Skips (20:39)
So yeah, I spice things up. aside from jumping your goal for jumping for 365 days, do you set goals for like your progress? Like you mentioned like learning more footwork or do you just kind of flow?

Aaron Fleming (20:54)
Yeah, I just sort of go with it. So, what I tend to do on Instagram, I see someone do a cool move on that. I’m going to try that, I’m going to try that. And I’ll comment on it, I’m going to try that, I’m going try that. I go outside and then I’m like, well, I’m not doing that, I’m doing what I want to do. So, yeah, I just sort of just go with the flow and see what happens with it.

Dizzy Skips (21:08)
Yeah. Yeah.

Do you laugh at yourself while you’re jumping?

Aaron Fleming (21:19)
I’m a super serious jumper. So I’ll do a trick and if I fail and start getting angry and I’m throwing the rope and throwing the tripod and all sorts of stuff, yeah. I get so angry doing it. Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (21:22)
Yeah.

Really? Yeah. Well, I think I, I think I told you months ago that, at the beginning of the year, you know, injured myself so badly that I couldn’t really walk right for like six weeks and I definitely couldn’t jump or shuffle or anything like that. And so once I was able to jump again, I was just so happy to be out there that if I made mistakes, I would dance, you know, I didn’t get very frustrated. Now occasionally like,

I get frustrated if I’m trying to land a trick and it just can’t, but,

Aaron Fleming (22:10)
I do remember seeing those rules when you would be so relaxed by tripping. I’m like, how are relaxed? Why is the rope not in the air? Why are you not snapping your rope off?

Dizzy Skips (22:20)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don’t often throw my rope. I did one recently and posted a reel with it, but yeah, usually I’m pretty, I really feel so thankful to be able to jump rope and I am old enough that my body doesn’t always wanna cooperate and so when I’m feeling good enough and I can really flow, I just feel like it’s such a blessing.

So can you talk a little bit about the jump rope community? You mentioned like when you started out, you really weren’t aware of the community so much. When did you become aware of it? And then how has it affected your progress?

Aaron Fleming (22:56)
So what happened was I sort of started and I had a couple of followers, it was mainly my brother and stuff that would interact with my reels and then I did a cancer research challenge. My sister said, Aaron you should do that, you’re already doing it. I was like, ideal. I joined that community, there was like 30,000 other skippers there.

Dizzy Skips (23:07)
Mm-hmm.

Holy moly, that’s awesome.

Aaron Fleming (23:21)
And obviously everyone’s at a basic level with it. Then obviously I’m doing like crossovers because I’ve done a little bit just before that challenge. And then we just sort of like built an offshoot community off that which obviously included Andrea and Mandy. But she’s not on Instagram but yeah that’s a different topic. Yeah so we just had quite a few of us and we just kept on going. And then obviously I was editing on Instagram.

Dizzy Skips (23:37)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Fleming (23:51)
and I would get like 12 views or whatever on my video and just keep posting it to Facebook. And then after a while there was a couple of people and they just like shared what I was doing and then I got a couple of followers and then it just like slowly built up over time. And then obviously now my Instagram’s big and Facebook not so much because everyone’s got bored of it and all that sort of stuff. But yeah.

Dizzy Skips (23:54)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, sometimes I wonder why I mean, like I use that feature of Instagram to send my reels to Facebook, but I could have a reel on Instagram that gets a thousand views and it will get 10 on Facebook or, you know, eight or something depressing like that.

Aaron Fleming (24:32)
opposite for me when I was doing it, so… Yeah, because obviously it was part of that group. I guess people just wanted to see, obviously they had just started jumping and I’m doing a couple of crossovers. There were loads of people interacting with it and stuff. Which obviously felt good when you’re doing something and there’s loads of people saying, you’re doing brilliantly. I’m not sure if I would have continued.

Dizzy Skips (24:35)
Really? Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it’s awesome.

Aaron Fleming (24:58)
without that support actually. You know like when my Instagram’s getting 12 views and then if I share it to Facebook it’s getting 12 views and I’ll be like, I don’t think anyone wants to see this.

Dizzy Skips (25:07)
Yeah. Yeah, I know in the first episode when I had Andrea on, she mentioned that she was inspired by you going on to do tricks and that that was one of the things that made her continue, which is cool.

So when you are trying to learn a trick and you’re kind of feeling stunted or like you can’t quite land it, how do you approach that? Do you just push through or do you like let it go for a little bit? Do you have a tactic for attacking new tricks?

Aaron Fleming (25:37)
So it’s sort of the same as when I’m doing combos. They don’t go right all the time. So I could be out there for an hour just like, this time I’ll do it, this time I’ll do it, this time I’ll do it. Yeah, so I just keep on going and hopefully I get it. So if I tell myself I’m doing a backflip for example, I’m going to be outside until I a backflip. I’m not coming back in. So yeah, that’s literally what do. I’m like, right, that’s it. I’m doing a backflip now.

Dizzy Skips (25:43)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

That’s cool. You mentioned that you have missus and children. How do you carve out time or when do you carve out time to jump? Do you have a standard time that you jump?

Aaron Fleming (26:14)
So I do it the second I get back from work. I’ll get back from work, go straight in jump rope and then it’s family time after that. But they’re used to that anyway because of the gym I would go to the gym every day. So it’s just the same sort of thing but obviously I’m at home instead of out and about.

Dizzy Skips (26:23)
Okay.

Yeah, are you like a nine to five worker or an eight to five worker? You mentioned office job.

Aaron Fleming (26:38)
Yeah, 9-5, 9-5. Obviously there’s times where you have to stop while 6, which is… It’s fine in the summer and fine in the winter, but it’s not fine when it’s the middle part and you don’t want to skip in the dark.

Dizzy Skips (26:40)
Nine to five.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, this is the depressing time of year when, at least here in the US, daylight savings time goes off and we lose an hour so it gets dark at like 5 p.m. and it’s frustrating.

Aaron Fleming (27:08)
We’ve got that here as well.

Dizzy Skips (27:10)
Yeah. So, you know, one thing I’m interested to hear from you is when you see new jumpers or people who are interested in maybe jumping, what sort of advice or experience can you give them?

Aaron Fleming (27:27)
It’s quite a funny one actually because when we were doing that group on Facebook where we had continued skipping beyond the 100 skips then obviously the next time another challenge would happen we would get a few more people join and so on and so forth and then Ellie joined, I can’t remember her handle and my phone’s going to play a reel if I open it so…

Dizzy Skips (27:35)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Fleming (27:51)
I remember she joined and she must have there 2-3 days and I’m like, do a crossover, do a crossover, just do a crossover! So I’m not great at advising straight away, like I always say have fun and all that sort of stuff but then I’m trying like, do a crossover, do tricks at the same time. So, yeah.

Dizzy Skips (28:08)
Mm-hmm.

So your advice is do a crossover?

Aaron Fleming (28:14)
Yeah, my advice is always do a crossover, yeah.

Dizzy Skips (28:17)
Hahaha!

That’s great.

That’s so funny. Well, I asked you about, well, I don’t know if I asked you about cravings. You mentioned pizza and stuff like that, but do you, if you come home and go straight out to jump rope, presumably you have dinner after your jump roping or jumping rope?

Aaron Fleming (28:35)
Yeah, I’ll… erm… Yeah, typically it’s straight after dinner, with a coffee. I love my coffee.

Dizzy Skips (28:43)
Me too, man. How do you take your coffee?

Aaron Fleming (28:46)
I used to use sugar but I’ve used sweeteners now and just bit of milk with my coffee. Then I have about 10 cups a day so it’s not ideal.

Dizzy Skips (28:52)
Yeah.

Yeah, I joke that I like my coffee like I like my women like dark, hot and bitter.

So I know you said that you’re quite a serious jumper, but what are some of the funnier things that have happened to you while jumping rope or as a result of jumping rope?

Aaron Fleming (29:15)
I get whipped a lot, ridiculously so. It’s not even funny, I always find it when you see someone else get whipped and that’s funny but then when it happens to you you’re like this is horrendous. But yeah I’ve had whips across my back so bad that it’s bled and then the next day I’m whipping myself in the back again I’m like my god what’s wrong with me?

Dizzy Skips (29:37)
my God.

Aaron Fleming (29:44)
Yeah, the amount of whips I’ve had, like, learning different moves and I remember one time my legs, arms and back was just literally red with loads and loads of whip marks. yeah. Is it? It’s not funny at the time but looking back it’s pretty funny.

Dizzy Skips (29:55)
Yeah, I’ve done that myself.

Yeah, I mean it’s funny that you stick with it. know, most people who would be beaten up by a rope would like stop, stop whipping yourself. They would just stop jumping. But I will do it until I’m black and blue because I don’t know. John Mellencamp had that song, Hurt So Good. And I always think of that when I slap myself with a speed rope. Like it hurts, but I’m glad to be out here doing it.

Aaron Fleming (30:27)
Yeah, it’s weird, the amount of times you hurt yourself and you just keep on going. It’s almost like we like it.

Dizzy Skips (30:36)
you’ve jumped for 400 and however many days it’s been now that have you had days where you just really had to push yourself? Like I don’t want to do this today, but I got to keep it up.

Aaron Fleming (30:49)
it. At the start there was a lot of days because I had shin splints and all sorts of stuff trying to jump rope and stuff like that. But yeah it’s like some days I’d get back I was like I just want to go to the pub. I’m jumping rope and everyone else is to the pub I’m jumping rope. So they’re hard to even start jumping those days. I don’t know obviously it affects everything and then it ends up being three hours I’m outside for and yeah.

Dizzy Skips (31:17)
Yeah.

Aaron Fleming (31:17)
I definitely have days where it’s so hard just to go outside and jump. And then like in the summer it’s easy isn’t it? It’s sunny and great weather. So that’s easy part. It’s mainly the winter.

Dizzy Skips (31:21)
Yeah.

Yeah. Do any of your family jump rope or do you have like friends locally that jump with you at all?

Aaron Fleming (31:38)
Er, no, my brother does a little bit of jumping from time time. My kids obviously I’ve helped try and teach them when they actually stay engaged with it. But yeah, I’ve never actually come across another jumper. Someone else skipping rope, so… It’s kinda weird, like, what if Instagram’s all a lie and I’m just the only person?

Dizzy Skips (31:53)
yeah.

Yeah, everybody else is a bot or an AI. Yeah. Yeah. I know what you mean. I, the town I live in the population is, think it’s like 16,500 people. And so far I’ve not seen anybody else jump rope. I’ve had a lot of people, you know, stop and comment on my jumping rope, but, yeah, I feel like I need to inspire someone locally to come out and jump with me or get

Aaron Fleming (32:03)
Yeah.

Dizzy Skips (32:27)
like I said before, get sponsored in. I wanna come to one of those meetups in the UK. I think that would be awesome. They sound like so much fun. Have you ever been to one of those meetups?

Aaron Fleming (32:37)
No, no. So I am going to try and do more and more meetups. Hopefully one day do my own, but again I don’t know anyone in my area that skips so that could be quite difficult to organise in my own area.

Dizzy Skips (32:39)
No.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, any other advice or things that you would like to say to the jump rope community?

Aaron Fleming (32:58)
I think the most important thing is to have fun and don’t struggle by yourself. whether that be trying to learn a trick or anything like that, just put it out there and say does anyone know how to do this? And someone’s going to jump in and say yep, do it like this. So you don’t have to spend ages struggling. The same with most things, if you’ve got a problem in general there’s obviously people there that’s going to help you. Like it’s the most supportive community I’ve seen.

Unlike football, everyone’s at each other’s necks, they don’t want the spot.

Dizzy Skips (33:25)
right?

Right, Yeah, I think that’s great. I think so much of jump rope for me is competition against myself. know, like I need to be able to level up my footwork. I need to be able to wrangle a rope like Aaron or at least get better at it. But I’ve thankfully learned that I don’t have to compete with you. know, like I’m competing against myself and if I compete with you, I’m gonna lose every time on the rope wrangling end at least.

Aaron Fleming (33:58)
I will lose on the footwork too.

Dizzy Skips (34:00)
Yeah, well, I need, my plan for the winter is to work more on the rope work. I still need to get smooth at releases and I’m not. But.

Aaron Fleming (34:11)
It all takes time, obviously you’re doing what you want to do, you want to go and do your footwork and stuff like that. If you’re not wanting to do crosses there’s no point doing all the crosses, it’s the way I view it so I don’t like doing the footwork so I don’t do the footwork. Just stick with what I enjoy doing. Also with the competition aspect, do know where you’re like, don’t view that person as competition?

Dizzy Skips (34:25)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron Fleming (34:36)
Which I agree with, obviously, it’s just you vs you. Until someone else can do a move that you want to do. Then you’re like, you’re the enemy. The amount of times I’ve been watching someone’s reel, like, ARGH!

Dizzy Skips (34:44)
Hahaha

Yeah, I guess I don’t think of them as the enemy. Sometimes I do feel a little envious like, my God, how can they do that? Like, will I ever be able to do that? And sometimes my brain, I think the depressive part of me wants to say, you’ll never get there. But I think the truth is like, if you show up, especially like you showing up every day for 365 days and putting in time, you will get better. You can’t help it. And definitely if you reach out to people on

Instagram or Facebook or wherever you play. I think so many people in this community just want to see you succeed, you know, and they want to help. I know I do because I’ve got so much help from people like you and, and others in the community and, and it feels good to be positive, right? Yeah.

Aaron Fleming (35:39)
Yeah, yeah. It’s the most important thing. You can obviously be as negative as you want, but the same energy to be negative, you could have just been positive. It just makes sense to be as positive as you can. Even if your fingers do get hurt from all the typing. Scrolling and typing.

Dizzy Skips (35:49)
Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I think I’ve said it before on the podcast that I am just a believer in that you put good energy out there and good energy comes back to you. And, you know, there’s a lot to the idea of manifesting or whatever, but, you know, people who, when, I should talk about myself, when my self-talk has been relentlessly negative, everything goes wrong. You everything is a problem.

But when I can talk to myself and say, you know, you’re doing the best you can and just keep at it, you’re going to get better. Then I feel better, you know, and I act better toward other people. So, well.

Aaron Fleming (36:33)
Yeah, I’m a mixture on that to be honest. So like, when I’ll do it I’ll be like, yes I smashed that, then I’ll go and edit it and I’ll be like, that was terrible. Obviously the energy I’m putting out is just, I’m telling myself I’m terrible every time on the internet. Which isn’t ideal, because if I see someone else doing that I’m like, you need to be more positive with how you’re talking about yourself, but then obviously I do it myself so it’s easy to do.

Dizzy Skips (36:43)
Yeah.

Sure.

Right. Well, try to remember to talk to yourself like you would talk to me and I’ll do the same for you. Cause I know I can, I can have really negative self-talk and it just never helps anything ever, you know?

Aaron Fleming (37:13)
it spirals and obviously like you know when you’ve had a bad session and then the next day you’re thinking about that bad session and then there’s another bad session and yeah I’ve had all of them.

Dizzy Skips (37:23)
Yeah, yeah. I think that’s one of the ways that music helps me is that I’m such a music nerd that if I can get a song or a playlist or whatever that really connects with me, it’s easier for me to get lost in the song and in the jumping rope and to that point of like nirvana for me where I’m just flowing and not thinking about it. I just love that place.

Do you feel like you get there or are you constantly thinking while you’re skipping? you’re a relentless tricker or trickster, I should say.

Aaron Fleming (37:57)
So a lot of it, there’s obviously certain moves, so there’s an elephant which you do the crossover under your leg. It’s like that move I’ll be thinking about the tricks specifically, but then certain ones I’ve done them that many times, I’m just sort going through the motion. Yeah, so it is a mixture of thinking about what I’m doing and not so much. Which is what I like, I like it I don’t have to think about it.

Dizzy Skips (38:14)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Fleming (38:26)
jump.

Dizzy Skips (38:26)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I feel like the more I think, the more mistakes I make. And sometimes I feel like the more I pay attention, the more mistakes I make. Like even trying to learn releases, I think I have landed more releases when I’m not looking at the rope at all, when I’m looking straight ahead than when I’m actually trying to pay attention to the rope. And I’m not sure why that is, but I need to turn off my brain more.

Aaron Fleming (38:54)
Yes, that happens to me all the time as well. You know like when you’re aware you’ve pressed go on your camera and then you mess up and then you’re like, right I’ll just try it without the camera on and then you land it all you’re for god’s sake.

Dizzy Skips (39:01)
Yep.

Yeah. Yeah, I have some videos on my camera where I’ll go set it on the tripod and skip for a while. And it’ll be 30 minutes of video because in the beginning I sort of trip up a little bit or whatever. And I mean, I always trip up a little bit, but the longer I go, the more I can kind of forget the cameras there and just be doing my thing.

And every once in a while I’ve had these experiences where after I’m done and I go back and watch the video, I see something that I’m amazed with, where I feel it’s kind of an out of body experience, like, wow, look at that. I had no idea I did that, but that was kind of cool.

Aaron Fleming (39:48)
Yeah, I’ve had a few of those as well but what normally happens to me is I’ll… like you know when I’m making mistakes and then I’ll press record, go into my tricks, come back and then I’ll press stop like I’ve failed again and what happens is I end up switching it around so I’m not recording my tricks and then I’m just recording me walking back and forth to the camera.

Dizzy Skips (39:49)
Yeah.

I’ve done that, my goodness. Yeah, I went out and skipped this morning and I was skipping for a while and in the park that I go to, they’ve got these little restrooms or, know, porta-potties or whatever you call them. And so I took a break to go use the restroom and I came out and went back into the car and I realized that I had never shut off my video from when I was skipping before. I had…

put my phone in my pocket, gone in the restroom. And so now I have audio of me peeing as well as my skipping, which is charming, I’m sure.

Aaron Fleming (40:47)
Look at it, like 4 hours worth of work happened!

Dizzy Skips (40:51)
Yeah, I’ve done that one as well where I’ve turned it on and then put it in my bag and then realized that, you know, it ran out of space at four gigabytes or something.

Well, Aaron, I really appreciate you coming on and talking to me. This has been so much fun and I just love interacting with you on Instagram. I’m always trying to get a laugh out of you and so I hope I do.

Aaron Fleming (41:11)
Yeah, I always struggle when someone compliments me. Like, are you brilliant? I’m like, I don’t think I am. thank you? Then I just always put thank you on a smiley face. It’s a weird one.

Dizzy Skips (41:18)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I understand, but you are brilliant and you’re helping a lot of people and I’m just so glad you’re part of the Jump Rope community and that we’re Instagram friends and especially that you’ve come on and talked to me. This is awesome.

Yeah. I was thinking earlier today, we could have a, like a we could have a whole British panel represent from different areas of the UK. Yeah. Do some live skipping.

Aaron Fleming (41:47)
Now that’ll be cut.

That would be quite cool actually. I always wonder how would you set it up so you can see everyone else skipping but then you’re skipping at the same time and recording it.

Dizzy Skips (42:01)
Yeah, my coach does these skipping sessions usually a few times a week, like Saturdays at 10, and they’re on Zoom. so, especially when it was summertime, I would take my laptop outside and prop it on a bucket or something, and then blow up the Zoom screen. And it was a lot of fun because he would have us jump, like, all right, we’re gonna work on releases, so everybody do this, or we’re gonna work on this footwork.

he’d demonstrate it and then we’d do it and he can zoom in on specific people and say, hey, know, Inga, you show everybody how this is done. And so it’s a lot of fun. It’s kind of, it’s also great to be able to get real time feedback from somebody like, wait, like he said, you know, I can see you’re too tense, like relax. And I just love that. So yeah, maybe we’ll have to organize one of those.

Aaron Fleming (42:53)
Yeah, I

That would actually be better live. I know when I’m doing tutorials, then they send me the bit, they’ll try this and send it to me. But that’s from the beginning of when they were trying it and not towards the end. then I’ll send them based on that and then

Dizzy Skips (43:05)
Mm-hmm.

Dizzy Skips (43:10)
So Aaron, am curious, can you give me an overview of what is a normal day for Aaron look like? Like from the time you wake up to like bedtime.

Aaron Fleming (43:20)
So, my days are pretty stacked to be honest, straight away in the morning. So I get up, get ready, get the kids ready, then we drop them off at school. We’ve just got the one car and the missus drives it. So we’ll drop the kids off at school and then take me to work and then she comes back. And then obviously I’ll go to work all day, finish, and then she comes and picks me up, takes me home and then straight outside and doing skipping.

dinner, sleep and then the same again, yeah. It is quite full on, yeah, but it works.

Dizzy Skips (43:58)
And how many kids do you have?

Aaron Fleming (44:00)
Three.

Dizzy Skips (44:00)
Boy, that’s gotta be a lot of work. I just, can’t imagine, like, how do you even get time to skip? I’m, you know, I have a dog that I have to take care of, but outside of that, I can just goof around, but it’s cool that you make time.

Aaron Fleming (44:00)
Yeah.

the other area.

Well, my kids are quite good actually. They do entertain themselves a lot. Like, so one of them’s in secondary school. One’s in year four and then obviously there’s a three year old who doesn’t entertain himself. He terrorises everyone else. But yeah.

Dizzy Skips (44:29)
Yeah. I’m curious, like we talked a little bit about food cravings and stuff like that before, like what’s an average, I’m curious, like what do you eat on an average day? Like when you’re doing this work stuff, are you eating at work? Do you pack yourself a lunch? What is it your food intake look like?

Aaron Fleming (44:47)
So I typically walk to the shop and I’ll just buy as much protein items as possible. obviously I to like all the crisps and… I don’t know what you would call them. Like the bag with the crisps in them. Yeah, yeah, potato chips, yeah. But yeah, it’s mainly protein driven so if I’m not at work I’ll just have like eight eggs in the breakfast.

Dizzy Skips (45:02)
Yep, like potato chips or whatever, yeah.

Aaron Fleming (45:14)
and coffee and then eggs again and another coffee. Yeah, so it’s quite intense my diet. It’s just very, very protein driven. Not much for anything else.

Dizzy Skips (45:19)
Wow.

So when you say eggs, are you going to the market and buying raw eggs and then cooking them, or are you buying like hard boiled eggs?

Aaron Fleming (45:31)
I think we buy about 45 eggs a week just for me. Which is obviously a little bit crazy but then some people eat that in a day so…

Dizzy Skips (45:40)
That’s not crazy, but that’s a serious intake of eggs. But you’re also a really big guy. You’re 6’7″, right? So, yeah. It’s gotta take something to feed that.

Aaron Fleming (45:48)
Yeah.

it funny when my mates are at the gym and they’re like, you know, cutting their diets and they tell me what they’re eating I was like, I don’t think I’d be alive if I ate that. They’re like under 2000 calories I’m like I need way more than that.

Dizzy Skips (45:58)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, when I used to do kickboxing, one of my friends who was doing it as well decided to do some competitive kickboxing. And so he got a gig at a casino where he was fighting against this other guy. And so he had to actually drop weight. And so for a few days, he was like eating a salad and that was it. And he totally got hangry. You know, he would get pissed off because his body wanted more. And I just, I don’t know.

that self-torture that we go through.

Aaron Fleming (46:34)
I always look at the strongman because like obviously skipping is a big interest but weightlifting is also a big interest and I’m like looking at the likes of four who are similar sort of height to me and the amount of food you have to eat it’s like 5,000 6,000 calories a day

Dizzy Skips (46:43)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, like a turkey and a ham. Yeah. So what is like in your food intake, you mentioned crisps and stuff that you used to like, what is a weakness or what is a treat for you? Like, what do you treat yourself with food wise?

Aaron Fleming (46:55)
Yeah.

Erm… Probably pizza. Pizza’s a pretty big weakness for me. Er, or cheesy garlic bread, know, like anything like that. yeah. That’s right up my street, that. Er, cheese is obviously a big one as well. that’s

Dizzy Skips (47:12)
Yeah.

Do you have favorite types of cheese? Are you selective?

Aaron Fleming (47:28)
pretty much any cheese as long as it says cheese on a package and I’m like, yep that’s good. So, obviously I make my healthy eggs and stuff like that and then I’m like, put some cheese on it, put some cheese on it. That is my weakness so I’ll just eat so much cheese.

Dizzy Skips (47:34)
Yeah.

cheese too. Yeah and I have to kind of control myself because I want to eat more but the other thing is like I am skipping so much that I’m burning so many calories that I try and give myself a little bit of a break you know like I really don’t count calories or whatever I just I know when I’m taking in more than I need to like when I eat an entire large pizza in one sitting.

Aaron Fleming (48:05)
You know it’s bad but it tastes good.

Dizzy Skips (48:07)
Do you cook like yourself or does your wife do other cooking?

Aaron Fleming (48:11)
So in terms of the family meals, the Mrs. does all of those. Mainly because everyone doesn’t want a protein diet for the meals. But yeah, I do do a bit of cooking but…

Dizzy Skips (48:23)
So if it were up to you, everybody would just eat eggs all the time.

Aaron Fleming (48:26)
Yeah, eggs is the big one. Every meal time I’m like, do want me to make an omelette? She’s like, no I don’t want no bloody omelette.

Dizzy Skips (48:36)
The kids are like, no more eggs, please!

Aaron Fleming (48:39)
It’s bad. Because I don’t get bored of it so I’m just like, I’ll just have eggs every day. Same with in the summer when you have your salads and stuff. I can have that every single day so I’m like, we’ll have a salad again, we’ll have a salad again. No more salads! No more eggs, no more salads!

Dizzy Skips (48:44)
Right, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I totally do the same thing. there’s this specific salad I used to get at Costco and I would just eat it every single day for lunch. Or I got in a kick one winter time where I made chili every week and I’d make a big batch of chili and then just eat it for lunch every day. And it just removed that guesswork, you know? It was the one less thing I had to worry about. I just knew I had a couple cups of chili for lunch

I understand that eating the same thing over and over again.

Aaron Fleming (49:21)
It’s easier isn’t it? It’s to keep your diet up if you’re just like, I know what I’m having everyday.

Dizzy Skips (49:29)
Yeah. Yeah, I heard, do you know Oliver Sacks? Do you know that guy?

I heard an interview with him on Radiolab years ago where he was kind of the same and he ate like…

was not liver, but it was kidney. He had a thing for kidneys. So he would go to the market and he would buy two pounds of kidneys every time. and he had couscous, like kidneys and couscous was what he ate over and over again. But he went to the market one time and said he wanted two pounds and they gave him 22 pounds and he just didn’t have it in him to say, no, I only needed two pounds. So he took home 22 pounds and then ate it over and over and over again until he just like totally blew himself on.

Aaron Fleming (50:03)
you

Dizzy Skips (50:11)
kidneys and he couldn’t eat them again.

Aaron Fleming (50:13)
I’ve done that with poor poor diet choices. I remember one time I did a fish only diet. That was horrendous. I did it for about six weeks. Imagine waking up in the morning like I’ll eating fish, lunch time I’m eating fish, dinner time I’m eating fish and the next day you’re eating fish and you’re like, that was horrendous diet and I’ll never do that again.

Dizzy Skips (50:24)
Yeah.

Yeah, you gotta have some pizza in there, man. You gotta have some pizza. So talk to me a little bit about your music taste. Like I mentioned that I’ve picked up several cool songs from watching your reels, but I’m curious, like, where did your music taste come from?

Aaron Fleming (50:48)
So, growing up UK garage was quite a big thing. Like it’s not really my age bracket, like it’s the people a little bit older. But obviously they, like my older brother would listen to it and then it would, I would obviously hear him listening to it as a kid and it just sort of stuck with the garage rap sort of genre. But yeah, like it probably hypes me up you know when I’m working out and stuff, like when I’m in the gym, put a bit of garage on.

Dizzy Skips (51:15)
Yeah. Yeah. Are there specific bands that you listen to or like favorites that you go back to a lot?

Aaron Fleming (51:16)
But yeah, that works well.

It’s a bit of a mix-up to be honest, there’s like, with The Garage stuff specifically, whilst there were some very good songs, the same artist did make some very bad songs too. So it’s like a bit of all the best ones. It’s the same with the rap music as well obviously. If you listen to an Eminem album, that every song on there is good.

Dizzy Skips (51:35)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Right, Yeah, some of them hit different. Do you listen using Spotify or some tool like that? Do you make playlists?

Aaron Fleming (51:50)
Yeah.

I usually listen to Radio 1 Extra which is like all that sort of music but obviously it’s UK based and yeah I use that a lot. I do listen to Spotify and YouTube music and stuff as well but I’m very specific and I’ll type in the exact song I want.

Dizzy Skips (52:17)
I think when I interviewed Janie, she was talking about, like, she likes the suggested music feature of Spotify and that she pays a lot of attention to that. Do you ever use that? I noticed they also have an AI feature that can just kind of suggest stuff based on what you’ve listened to.

Aaron Fleming (52:34)
No, I don’t really use it too much mainly because like you know like when you know what you like and then Like when you listen to Eminem for example, it’s okay when he’s doing it, but there’s another guy that sort of sounds like Eminem It doesn’t really work So I am very specific on the ones I like and the ones I really don’t like

Dizzy Skips (52:49)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean.

Aaron Fleming (52:55)
Especially, I don’t know if you’ve heard modern rap, it’s very mumbly and you don’t really know what they’re saying.

Dizzy Skips (53:02)
Yeah. The older I get, the more I feel like, what? Yeah. I mean, I still love a lot of the music, but yeah, I totally don’t get the lyrics always.

Aaron Fleming (53:16)
I remember you did a reel and was it a Machine Gun Kelly in…

Dizzy Skips (53:21)
Yeah.

Aaron Fleming (53:23)
I can’t remember who other guy was now, but was like, no, the two of my worst musicians on one track!

Dizzy Skips (53:28)
Yeah, you’re not a Machine Gun Kelly fan, I take it. No.

Aaron Fleming (53:32)
No, no. I think he should have stopped after that beef with Eminem as well.

Dizzy Skips (53:37)
Yeah, I actually probably don’t know much about that. And I never really listened to him that much, but that was a case of something that was suggested to me on Spotify. And I was like, this thing really sounds cool. I liked the song that was suggested to me. And then later on, you know, looked at it and was like, that was Machine Gun Kelly weird. I’d only seen him in like People magazine with, you his girlfriend or whatever.

Aaron Fleming (53:58)
that.

It was with Lil Wayne, wasn’t it? Lil Wayne and Machine Gun Kelly. Don’t like either of them.

Dizzy Skips (54:08)
Yeah. Yeah. I’m curious about jumpers. There’s so many great jumpers in the community and so many people have, I mean, everybody’s got their own style. But who inspires you? Who do you watch on Instagram and get inspired by?

Aaron Fleming (54:27)
So I watch a big mixture of people. So like, know, when I’m watching you with your footwork, I don’t do footwork, but I like to watch it. And then I might get inspired by one little movement that you do. Which is the same for most skippers, because there’s not many people that skip like I do, you know, to take inspiration from. people do a couple of moves and then go back to normal skipping. I’m trying to keep it going indefinitely. So there’s like…

Dizzy Skips (54:53)
Yeah, you’re a monster.

Aaron Fleming (54:56)
The… I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, he’s called Skip Awl. And he’s ridiculous at releases, it’s absolutely insane. But yeah, I watch that guy for releases. He does comment and tells me what moves are called when I’m calling them the wrong thing and all that sort stuff as well. yeah. Yeah, for me it’s mainly just… Yeah, Skip Awl. And he was also one of the first people that, like, know, like, shared my channel as well, which…

Dizzy Skips (55:11)
Yeah?

You said it’s Skip Al?

Aaron Fleming (55:24)
It’s obviously really cool of him to do.

Dizzy Skips (55:25)
cool. So you said owl like the bird.

Aaron Fleming (55:29)
So it’s skip AWL.

Dizzy Skips (55:33)
AWL. yes. All right. Great.

Aaron Fleming (55:36)
So yeah, he inspires me a lot with the moves he does. I asked him the other day to skip like I do because I know he can easily do it. There’s a lot of people that do different challenges and stuff. You know when you see them do double unders and then they’re jumping in circles and double unders? are you doing that? And then you see someone else do it as well. yeah, I like the variation of it and then just try and…

Dizzy Skips (55:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron Fleming (56:04)
get inspired by little bits of what everyone else does.

Dizzy Skips (56:07)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, you mentioned releases and there’s this lady, I don’t know if I’ve actually mentioned her on the podcast, but I think I told Janey about her after the podcast when we recorded, but I just love watching her. Her name is Miriam and her handle is @miriamjumpsdance Jumps Dance. I’ll put it in the show notes, but she is like a rope ninja, watching her.

releases, they’re crazy and she’s so fast and she, I think is in Canada and she sort of jumps on this little path in the woods, which is beautiful, but she’s so fun to watch. Like every single time I’m just mystified by her and I want to be able to wrangle the rope like that.

Aaron Fleming (56:49)
Yeah, there’s some crazy ones. I don’t know if you’ve seen it where they’re doing the Mamba. The Mamba release. And then they jump the rope and carry on doing the Mamba. I’m like, how have you done that?

Dizzy Skips (56:55)
Yeah.

I, yeah, she’s one of those people that does that sort of thing. Yeah, I don’t have the mamba down at all. I mean, I’m still struggling with releases, honestly, but what we’re…

Aaron Fleming (57:12)
Yeah, I’m not too good at releases. I seem to pull through them, but I do them really high, so I’ve got loads of time to catch it.

Dizzy Skips (57:18)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I am trying to work on my form. Honestly, one of the problems too is that one of the places that I jump, it’s frequently very windy. So there’s like one side I can do releases on and the rope goes further away from me. And then the other side, if I try and spin it on the other side, I’ve got a split second before the rope blows back into me. So that is a little bit of a challenge, but.

I think in general I still don’t have the movement down. It’s not natural.

Aaron Fleming (57:48)
Yeah.

I unlocked the bike release by pure luck. I was trying a different move and then I caught the ripper’s like, that was the release and then did it again and I was like, I wasn’t even trying for that move. I think luck plays a massive role in skipping, think. Like, huge.

Dizzy Skips (57:54)
Yeah.

Yeah, man, I love that feeling.

Yeah. I think luck and then, like for me, I’ve mentioned my nirvana is just kind of turning my brain off and just flowing. sometimes when I’m like, I did that this morning, I had a friend who came to town and I got up early and the park opens at 7 a.m. So I was there shortly after that and skipping and what, and I just kind of was able to get to that spot where I turned my brain off and.

All of a sudden I was doing this thing with my feet that I’d never done before and it was like this cool unlock. But it was because I wasn’t thinking. It was because I was just flowing and I just tried it. I just love that feeling. And then I was like, my God, unlock, this is cool. And now I’m gonna do it. So then I did it the rest of the day every time I jumped.

Aaron Fleming (58:53)
Yeah, that’s a bit a big way I lock moves as well, just something happens and I’m like, that was quite cool. And then you do it over and over again and then someone goes, you’re doing it a little bit wrong. You’re like, But yeah.

Dizzy Skips (59:00)
Yeah.

Yeah.

What was the unlock that you were most proud of? Like when you had this unlock, you were like, my God, I wish I could tell my wife about this and she would be as interested as I am.

Aaron Fleming (59:17)
I would say the double under was the biggest one. I’d been asked so many times. So I could jump really high, so was like, I’ve got the height, but then I’m trying to swing the rope around at the normal speed and I’m like, this doesn’t work. And then I finally got it, she was there actually when I got it and I was cheering around and then I tried it again and failed and I was like, aww. But yeah, that was the best one.

Dizzy Skips (59:21)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So I.

Aaron Fleming (59:44)
already done that bit.

Dizzy Skips (59:46)
Yeah, right. Well, I’ve taken up so much of your time. I really appreciate you spending time with me on a Saturday to chat about Jump Rope. And thanks again for all you do for the Jump Rope community. You’re a cool guy.

Aaron Fleming (1:00:01)
I try, I try.